


Watch Me Fall

by wasted_truth



Series: The Rickest Morty [11]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-03-07 09:30:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13431867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wasted_truth/pseuds/wasted_truth
Summary: “People are not born heroes or villains; they’re created by the people around them.” ― Chris ColferSometimes in life, we are forced to a breaking point by circumstances that are under the control of the multiverse. In those moments, we find out who we truly are and what we can bear. Evil Morty breaks, and what lies beneath is not what he or Rick would have expected.This is the story of a villain.(This follows all the previous stories in the series "The Rickest Morty"...you may need to read them for this to make sense!)





	1. Run as Fast as Razors (Prologue)

Morty woke up alone. Confused and half-awake, he flopped over so that he could read the digital clock. Six-thirty in the morning. He rubbed his face with both hands, listening for sounds of Rick down the hall in the bathroom. He heard nothing and eventually gave up on the idea that Rick had slipped out of bed to take a piss. Morty pitched a sigh and climbed out of bed to dress.

_I guess we’re going have another weird day, Rick?_ Morty thought, pulling a tee shirt over his head.

Rick had been stand-offish and angry for a couple of weeks now. Any time Morty tried to reach out or ask him what was wrong was met with silence, rebukes, or outright insults. Morty couldn’t help the fact that he was getting tired of this, and he was running out of ideas on how to approach Rick.

Even worse, Rick was still initiating sex most nights, and Morty wasn’t refusing.

Morty colored at the thought as he walked down the stairs. Part of him was so angry at Rick for the way he was acting, but the rest of him missed their closeness and was hurting. On the nights that Rick went straight to sleep, Morty would lie in the dark, staring at the ceiling with a terrible tightness in his chest. His heart struggled to beat while it was strangled. Tears burned in his eyes but did not fall.    

Whatever was happening, Morty knew he couldn’t go on like this much longer. It hurt too much. It made him question all these years he had lived with Rick, all the way back to the day Rick had saved him from the Citadel.

_“D-608, your new home, Morty.”_ Even now, he remembered those words.

_It doesn’t feel like home_ , he thought, opening the door to the garage. _Not right now._

The hatch to the laboratory below the garage was open. Rick had started going down there every day since he had come home from a delivery drunk. At first, Morty had finished their remaining jobs and delivered them. Without Rick acting as point man, though, the jobs had dried up. The clients were used to seeing Morty, but when it came down to it, they wanted to conduct business with Rick, not a teenage boy. Instead of drumming up new business or answering calls on his space phone, Rick was working on biological experiments that he refused to explain and were not for a client. There was a stack of unopened bills on the kitchen table, and the food in the refrigerator was dwindling. Morty didn’t know how the bills would get paid if they had no work.

*** 

Climbing down into the laboratory, Morty didn’t bother to hide the sound of his feet ringing on the ladder rungs. A dull lime-colored light emanated from beneath him. As he reached the bottom, he could hear soft clicks and then a grumble that sounded like Rick’s voice. Peeking around the ladder, he saw Rick sitting at a table, looking through a microscope at a glass slide. Other slides lay on the table around him, and there was even a stack of petri plates that looked like they contained blood agar.

“Rick.”

The man jerked his head back from the microscope, but didn’t turn to face Morty. “What.”

Morty crossed his arms, not caring that Rick couldn’t see his display of frustration. “What are you doing down here?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m using a microscope.”

Rolling his eyes, Morty tried to keep his voice even, but it was a struggle for him. “Thanks, Rick, I can see that. I meant, what are you _doing_. We don’t have a biological order. We have _no_ orders. Are you experimenting or something?”

“It’s not your fucking business. If I wanted you to k-*buuurp*-know, I would tell you myself. Now piss off. Go to school or something.”

Morty’s mouth fell open. “What. Did. You say?” He didn’t give Rick a chance to answer. “School? _School?_ When have I spent one day in school, Mr. School-Isn’t-a-Place-for-Smart-People? What should I do, Rick, just march into the school and pretend I belong?!”

Rick grabbed the sides of his head. “Stop yelling.”

_“How about you lay off the booze instead!”_ Morty snapped, taking angry satisfaction when Rick noticeably cringed. “It’s seven in the morning, you drunk asshole.”

Morty caught the sight of Rick gripping his hair and crouching forward in his seat before furiously climbing back up the ladder to the garage. When he reached the top, he slammed the hatch closed. It wouldn’t stop Rick from getting out; he was just trying to make more noise.

_What now. Breakfast I guess._

In the kitchen, he poured himself the last of the cereal, and there was barely enough milk. After throwing the box and carton in the trash, he looked in the fridge again, even though he knew there wouldn’t be any more milk for his breakfast.

_Wait…am I the only one eating anything?_

He surveyed the contents of the fridge again – it was easy because their food was dwindling. That second look convinced him that Rick wasn’t eating, or if he was, he recently stopped. The fury that Morty had been feeling started to shift into a heavy worry.

After he set up his bowl at the kitchen table and grabbed a glass of water, Morty sat down and opened the laptop that was always there. Eating with one hand and typing with the other, he Googled ‘alcoholism symptoms,’ and clicked on the first link that looked reputable. He clicked onto the symptom list, and that worry sank into his gut as he found symptoms that were too familiar.

_Aggression. Agitation. Self-destructive behavior. Anxiety. Discontent. Loneliness. Nausea._

Morty pushed the laptop back and dropped his spoon into the bowl. He buried his face in his hands. If this was it, what could he do? It’s not like Rick would accept his help. Not now.

_How could this happen? He’s always drank, but he’s…hit the wall or something. I’ve watched him drink and juggle life with no problem. Did something happen to make things turn bad? Why now?_

He did some more online searching, everything from NIH to Reddit; he even looked at some metaphysical sites out of desperation. Logically, though, he could only reach one conclusion. There was no way Rick would accept his or anyone else’s help, if he didn’t want it. A lot of the standard versions of help, like accepting a higher power, would drive him into a rage or derisive laughter.

_I don’t know what to do. He won’t talk to me, he won’t listen. Do I just let him spin out? I can’t live with him like this. I need a plan._

Morty forced himself to finish his cereal, but in the face of this, it tasted as bland as ash.

*** 

At around two o’clock, Morty got tired of fiddling with his own creations. He had been testing an AI system that he had hooked up to the computer for audio, but his concentration was shot. He unplugged the wires that ran behind his eye and sighed in frustration.

_I have to face that this situation is escalating. What can I do, when I know things are coming to a boil?_

He cleared a space on the table in front of him so he could put his head on his arms. _I have to tell him what I suspect…and the only outcome is that he will blow up. I can’t live through this one more time, even though he keeps…reaching out. If it’s bad, I’ll have to leave. I don’t know where I’ll go, but we need some space from each other._

Feeling like all his limbs were made of cement, Morty made himself go upstairs. He found a suitcase and a couple empty duffel bags. He packed a minimal amount of clothes and toiletries and used the rest of the space for tools, components, and other things he had built that would fit. He also packed a spare laptop that they kept for emergencies and several cards that were loaded with different alien currencies, again for emergencies. Both duffels he could carry on one shoulder and he took the suitcase by the handle and went down to the kitchen. He took some things from the table, including his AI device. He rummaged around on the table, which was a mess of papers, wires, and other parts, just to be sure he had gotten everything important.

Lifting up a pile of mail, he found a black eye-patch. He pulled it free and dropped the mail, so that he could examine it. Rick had made it for him months ago. It had a transmitter on the inside that fit perfectly with his eye wires. Rick had wanted him to try using a remote receiver, instead of hooking up directly like he had been, but Morty had never done more than test it. He didn’t have a pressing need to do anything remotely, so he had set it aside, where it apparently got lost under the mail mountain.

Morty shoved the eye-patch into the front pocket of his jeans and carried the bags to the garage, where he set them against the wall. With that contingency plan in place, he went back into the house and sat in front of the TV, trying not to fret.

*** 

“Rick… _Rick._ ” Morty was standing next to him while he stared through the microscope. It was like he hadn’t moved from this morning. _What is on those damn slides?_

“What.” Rick didn’t look up.

“Are you eating dinner? We’re almost out of food, but I think I can make Hamburger Helper without the hamburger.”

“No.”

Morty sighed and rubbed his forehead. “So, what, you’ve gone all day without eating? Did you get all your calories from whiskey today?”

Rick’s head snapped up and he turned to glare at Morty. “This again? You’ve become a fucking nag. Find something else to accuse me of, because this is getting boring.”

Morty stiffened so he wouldn’t flinch. In this weird lighting, the hollows and angles of Rick’s face stood out in a sick relief. “You’re bored? You’re not the one living with an angry drunk, day in, day out.”

“Oooh, that really stings. Oh no, call me a drunk, I’ll never recover,” Rick sneered. “At least be fucking original. Wait, you can’t. You’re just a Morty. You’re lucky if you have an independent thought.”

_I’m…just a Morty?_ He didn’t evaluate it; he saw red.

“Well, if the smartest man in the universe says so, I’m sure it’s fucking true. After all, you’re a brilliant scientist, musician, sex god, and yet you pick your bedmates out of a playpen at the Citadel! You think you’re so goddamn perfect, yet you are the most flawed motherfucker in the multiverse. It’s not your mind that’s exceptional – it’s your goddamn ego!”

Rick stood slowly, leaned over Morty, and smirked. “I never heard you ask to go back to that playpen.”

Morty’s body didn’t know what emotions to feel first, but that combined pain released as he shoved Rick as hard as he could. Rick staggered backward, lab coat flapping, and fell over the chair he had been sitting in. The seat slipped out from under him and he hit the floor hard on his side.

Staring at him with narrowed eyes that leaked tears, Morty managed to spit out, “Same old story, Ricks controlling Mortys? I wish I were back in the Citadel, believe me. Go fuck yourself, Rick Sanchez D-608.”

“You're nothing without me,” Rick groaned into the concrete floor.

Morty drew back his foot and kicked Rick in the back as hard as he could. Rick yelped, but Morty was already up the ladder. He exited the hatch and didn’t see Rick curl up into a ball, gripping his abdomen and struggling to breathe.

Flipping the hatch shut with his foot, Morty was rushing through the garage on an autopilot fueled by pain and a crushed heart.

_“You’re just a Morty.”_

He grabbed his bags and threw them into Rick’s ship out of habit.

_“You’re just a Morty.”_

The driver’s side door was unlocked, and Morty went with the compulsion to escape. He jumped in and powered up the ship with a code. The engines came on with a whine, and Morty backed the ship as fast as he could through the closed garage door. Fragments of plywood and twisted pieces of metal rained down on the windshield as he hovered in the driveway.

_“You’re just a Morty.”_

“ _I’m not just a Morty!_ ” he screamed, sobbing, digging his fingers into the wheel.

He jerked the wheel and streaked off into the sky.

“I’m not just a Morty,” he repeated as the landscape below grew small. The sky began to darken as he got close to the edge of the atmosphere.

_I’m the Rickest fucking Morty._


	2. Snake in the Grass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"You're about to be a cog in my wheel."_

**Chapter Two – Snake in the Grass**

 

The ride in the ship passed in a blur of alternating tears and anger. Finally, when he was empty, wrung out like a wet towel, Morty realized he needed to stop and rest. He considered just letting the ship float and sleeping sitting upright in the driver’s seat, but Rick had so many friends and clients…and enemies…Morty could picture someone approaching the ship, thinking Rick was inside. He could probably extricate himself from the situation, but he was too exhausted to want to bother. He checked the readout to see where he was at; he had travelled much farther than he had realized.

_Isn’t there an abandoned planet near here?_ he thought, with his head pounding from crying. _Yes, there is. We scavenged it for scrap metal once, when Rick got us in a fire fight._

Morty slowly typed in the coordinates that he thought were right and leaned back, his hands over his eyes and letting the ship guide itself. He didn’t know what this feeling was that he had. He felt…like a dog, tied up and forgotten in a yard…or a kid lost in a mall…or,

“Or someone thrown out onto the streets, rejected,” he muttered. Never mind that he had left; Rick had used him up and tossed him like trash.

His view hidden behind his hands, Morty ached in misery until the ship beeped in announcement of their arrival. He rubbed his sore eyes before looking; there it was, the opaque greenish-blue ball with two purple rings that he remembered. Taking the wheel, he landed the ship himself.

Not landing straight away, instead he flew around until he found the spot he recognized. The planet was, according to Rick, occupied by an ancestor of the gromflomites long ago; now all that remained were abandoned structures and the metal they had been searching for on that one particular adventure.

“There it is,” Morty whispered.

In front of him, through the wisps of fog, was a dome-like structure. It reminded him of Thunderdome, but much, much bigger. When he and Rick had been here before, it had panes of glass between the giant mesh-like design – although many panes had been cracked or broken. Still, it would serve as a shelter, at least for now.

Morty landed. He gathered his bags and suitcase, crossed in front of the ship, and stopped to stare up at the dome.

“It’ll do, for now,” he murmured, without realizing. “Just for now.”

***

Four weeks had gone by. He thought it was four weeks, anyway. Morty could have checked the ship’s readout to find out for sure, but he didn’t want to use up any battery power.

_And let’s be honest, Morty, you don’t want to know._

Shoving the thought aside, he continued working. He was building the skeleton of a hand and forearm from metal he had found and the equipment he had brought with him. At this point, he had convinced himself he was just trying to keep busy.

The skeletal bones were shiny and formed with the precision of a brilliant boy whose heart was turning cold. Tightening a tiny screw in a tiny finger joint, Morty sighed and tossed the small screwdriver to the side. For not the first time, he wondered what he was doing.

_Am I waiting for something?_ he thought grimly. _Surely I’m not that delusional._

_“You’re just a Morty.”_

Morty grimaced and set the arm on the floor beside him with too sharp of a _clack._

“And you’re just a Rick,” he told the vast, empty space. “There are so many of you that you formed your own damn government.” He stood, brushing dust from his jeans. “There are so many of you that you kill each other off on a regular basis and no one gives a shit.”

He glanced down at the metal arm.

“There are so many of you…what’s another one?” His speech was slow, as an idea grew in his genius mind.

“I could make my own Rick,” he said finally, “and I could travel unnoticed. Just another Morty with his Rick.” He chuckled, the first laugh he had let out in a month. It was cracked, low, angry, and pained, all at once. “Only this time, Morty will be calling the shots.”

***

It didn’t take him long to realize that constructing a mechanical version of Rick would take more than some scrap metal on his abandoned planet. He needed materials; more than that, he needed some help. So, he did what any logical person would do.

He used his scrap metal and parts to build some weapons.

After so many years of crafting weapons with Rick, knocking out a few was second nature. Two laser pistols and a phaser rifle were all he managed to make, but Morty thought they would be enough. After all, he wasn’t going after the strongest and the boldest. He also took the time to scramble some of the cards he had stolen: credits, schmeckles, blemflarks. If he was right, the values on the cards should now remain constant, no matter how many times they were used. As for the card with credits, which were used at the Citadel, it would identify the owner of the card as Morty’s original Rick – his grandfather, the one who dumped him at the Citadel in the first place. As far as he knew, that Rick was still alive, and Morty’s Rick –

_Or rather my old Rick, my most recent Rick –_

– had no idea who that first Rick was and would therefore not be able to track Morty that way. As if he would even want to find Morty, that is.

Weapons ready, Morty packed himself a go-bag of things he thought he might need: clothes, tools and odds and ends to repair the ship if needed, the money cards. Before leaving, he set the coordinates for the ship to follow. Not to the Citadel, which might seem like the logical choice, but to Planet PSL6 – a pleasure planet. Rick had told Morty of it, even pointed it out once, but they had never gone there themselves. However, according to Rick, it was a frequently visited place by Ricks, and their Mortys that were dragged in tow.

Morty positioned the rifle against the passenger seat so it would remain steady and switched on the ship. The ship coughed with disuse, then they were up and zipping toward Planet PSL6.

***

Morty was sleeping by the time PSL6 came into view and the ship began to beep. Groggily, he checked the read out; almost twelve hours had passed. He struggled to sit up straight. He could have flown faster, but again, battery life was a concern. Rubbing his face, his eyes focused on the planet as he took his hands away. PSL6 loomed pink and mottled in space, like a nipple.

_How appropriate._

Finding the landing spot was easy enough; it was lit up like a landing strip that aspired to be in Las Vegas: bright, flashing, and gaudy. Many other ships were parked. Morty took a spot closest to the entrance that he could find. Before exiting the ship, he made sure the pistols were as concealed on his body as he could make them. One tucked under the leg of his jeans and into his shoe, the other stuffed down the front of his pants, pressing against his junk. With no way to conceal it, he left the rifle behind. He took all the money cards and tucked them into his back pocket.

Just as he reached the ticketing area, he paused. With effort, he recalled all the other Mortys he had seen over the years. He managed a wide-eyed look and went up to a booth.

“One ticket?” A six-armed, blush pink creature asked. It was wearing no clothes, but that meant nothing to Morty.

“Uh-h,” Morty stammered. “I g-guess? I was with my Rick, and w-we got separated?”

The creature’s skin color darkened, closer to red. It didn’t seem like a pleased color. “Do you have your ticket stub from before? Hmm?”

“N-no.” Morty looked down at the ground. “I-I lost it.” He flicked a quick glance back at the ticketing agent to see how his act was going. “I-I feel like an idiot. I’m sorry.”

Sighing, the creature waved him inside the gates. “Go on. I doubt you’re here on your own.”

“T-Thank you, sir, m-ma’am, I mean,” Morty almost laughed at his own schtick. “Thanks.”

Morty walked through the gates and into the sex park that was the majority of PSL6. There were buildings, rides, open fields for doing whatever one liked, and although Morty saw a number of Ricks and Mortys, there were also many members of other species as well. But, it was the Mortys that he focused on. It seemed that little clusters of them were bunched together outside one of the rides. It looked like a Ferris wheel with gondolas, except that it spun quickly, and the entire wheel rocked from side to side as well.

“H-Hey, guys,” Morty announced, walking up to the other Mortys who were hanging near the fence surrounding the wheel.

They looked at him, dressed in a yellow shirt and jeans like them, and he got a bunch of stuttering hellos in response.

“So, I was w-wondering.” He trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck. “I, uh, m-my R-Rick wanted me to bring his bags over to that building over there.” He picked a tall building at random and pointed at it. “B-But I forgot, and now it’s late.” Gripping the edges of his shirt, he twisted where he stood, as if he were too anxious to continue. “Ah jeez, could a couple of you guys help me carry the bags from my Rick’s ship? H-He’ll have my ass if I don’t show up!”

The other Mortys muttered amongst themselves, then two of them stepped forward. “We can h-help,” the one on the left said.

“Great!” Morty let himself deflate as if relieved. “W-We parked near the front…c-come on.”

The other two Mortys followed him, making stammering small talk. Morty spun his tale out a little more, adding that “his Rick” was planning to stay several days and left Morty to his own devices. “I-I guess I’m sleeping in t-the ship,” he said, morosely.

“Y-You don’t have to,” one of the two piped up. They were trailing behind Morty as he led them to the parking lot. “A bunch of us stay in this w-warehouse with, like, bunk beds. You could stay with us!”

“Ah, wow, oh jeez, thanks!” he exclaimed as he reached the ship. He opened the back end and took out the lightest of the bags and hung it from his shoulder. Backing out of the way, he said, “T-The rest are in there.”

He continued to back up while the other two boys got up to the ship and looked in. While they were occupied, he freed the pistol from the front of his pants. It made a whine as he flipped it on. Both the other Mortys jerked their heads in his direction.

“Ah jeez,” he said flatly. “If I’m right, one of you should fit in the trunk, there.” He gestured with the pistol. “The other will have to ride with me. So, which will it be – who’s riding in the trunk?” Both boys stared at him, agape. After a few moments, Morty rolled his eyes skyward and pointed to the one on his right. “Fine. You there, into the trunk.” When he didn’t move, Morty aimed the pistol at the boy’s head. “Go.”

The kid raised his hands. “O-Okay, man, j-just don’t shoot, a-all right?” He backed up a step until he bumped into the ship. “O-Okay?”

Morty flicked the gun at him. Right-side Morty trembled, and Morty saw glimmers of tears on his cheeks before he climbed into the ship’s trunk.

“You,” Morty said to Left-side Morty, “close the lid.” When the boy hesitated, Morty repeated, “Close. It.”

“N-No.” Left-side Morty straightened his back. “I don’t k-know what you w-want, but –”

Morty lowered the pistol, and with practiced precision, lasered the tip of one of Left-side Morty’s shoes. The boy shrieked and jerked his foot back. “I want you to close the trunk.”

Visibly shaking, the boy shut the trunk lid.

“Now,” Morty swung the bag off his shoulder and set it on the ground. He quickly unzipped it and pulled out a roll of duct tape. He tossed it to Left-side Morty, who fumbled it and then got a good grip on the roll. “Now, you’re going to pull off a piece of tape and put it over your mouth.”

“What!”

Morty fired another blast into Left-side Morty’s toes. Another squeal from the kid, and Morty sighed. “Hurry up.”

After an annoying amount of instructions, Left-side Morty put tape over his own mouth, turned around, and Morty taped his wrists behind his back. He shoved the kid into the back seat, taped his ankles, and finally got into the driver’s seat.

Tossing the pistol on the seat, he picked up the rifle, so the kid could see it. “Stay put. Don’t try to be a hero.” He leaned the rifle against the seat again. “Mortys aren’t heroes. They’re just cogs in a wheel. Right?”

The boy’s eyes looked frightened and he made a muffled noise.

“You’re about to be a cog in my wheel,” Morty went on. “No big deal. You’re just a Morty.”   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So long! It's been quite the year. Let's hope 2019 includes more fic updates!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Sorry for the delay on posting this.
> 
> This is a multi-chaptered fic on Evil Morty and is the heart of his story. The first chapter is really a prologue, but I can't pick that as an option, so chapter one it is. 
> 
> I hope to take you on a ride through how the Evil Morty we have seen on R&M came to be - and what lies beyond. Thank you for reading.


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